Night Rain Mountain God Temple

Chenli, southern wilderness frontier—mountains, forests, and hills.

The night rain was cold and desolate, the mournful wind bleak and stern, the Sea of Trees swaying.

A sparse night rain shrouded heaven and earth beneath the dark of night. In flashes of lightning, the outlines of distant mountains appeared and vanished, like giants standing silent at the edge of the sky, so oppressive one could scarcely breathe.

In a ruined temple in the mountains, firelight trembled, its crimson glow like dim blood filling the entire inner hall.

Inside the temple, a martial artist, a merchant, an old man, and a physician—four people dressed differently, adorned differently, and built differently—wore the same expression: none at all. Some held weapons in their arms, while others curled up inside heavy coats. They watched the other three warily, sitting or reclining in silence beside the flickering bonfire.

Outside the temple lay many scattered corpses. Some appeared to have died only recently, their bellies torn open and their organs devoured by wild beasts. Great Demon bite marks covered their skulls and bones; some had even had their marrow sucked dry.

There were even the remains of children among them. Yet little more than their skulls remained, rolling off to one side.

In these wilderness forests haunted by Demons, all life was dangerous. The only one you could trust was yourself.

Crack.

The sound of heavy iron boots crushing branches rang out.

A point of fire swayed in the pitch-black rainy night.

All four raised their heads at once and looked outside the temple, then exchanged wary glances.

A figure holding a rainproof torch was slowly approaching from the mountain forest in the dead of night.

He was a young martial artist, tall and powerfully built, with a fluid physique like that of a mighty tiger or